What is going on with the title change investigation?

[deltawave]

7 hours ago, PACali said:

 

Edited December 11, 2019 by deltawave
Technical error

[deltawave]

7 hours ago, PACali said:

 

Their reason for associate is so we can keep the PA acronym... I want to ask what is point of keeping acronym? 

 

There is no valid reason to keep it! Drop it like it’s hot. 
PREACH IT! MCP is what I want to be. 

[ProSpectre]

4 hours ago, PACali said:

That's how I feel with my students in clinical rotation. They don't really care about the PA politics, but each one of them have over $100,000 loan to pay off. I try to tell them to get involved if they still want to have a job in the future. I also remind them that the Physicians will not watch our back. In a micro level, yes, we get along well with the physicians in the same department but in a macro level between organized medicines is a turf war. 

As a new grad PA, I wish there were more preceptors like yourself out there who actually talked to their students about the issues the profession is facing. I think there were relatively few students in my (large) class who actually knew what OTP is or who understood the importance of the title change.  

I heard precisely 1 PA preceptor in my clinical year bring up the topic of OTP, and I think I actually had a better understanding of it than he did; I was glad to see he was at least keeping up with changes within the profession and advocating for practice parity with NPs though. These issues were never discussed by any of the numerous faculty PAs in my program either, and only a few students I spoke with seemed well-versed on the issues. 

Unfortunately, the apathy among many practicing PAs seems to mirror the apathy of students in PA school when it comes to the issues facing the profession. I think preceptors and PA faculty alike should make it a point to highlight the importance of PA advocacy to students, and I think this would be well received if just a little bit of time was taken to explain the issues and why it's important for their future.

Most of what I know about these issues has come from this forum and the Huddle, and I think that's a crying shame. 

[Cideous]

1 hour ago, ProSpectre said:

As a new grad PA, I wish there were more preceptors like yourself out there who actually talked to their students about the issues the profession is facing. I think there were relatively few students in my (large) class who actually knew what OTP is or who understood the importance of the title change.  

I heard precisely 1 PA preceptor in my clinical year bring up the topic of OTP, and I think I actually had a better understanding of it than he did; I was glad to see he was at least keeping up with changes within the profession and advocating for practice parity with NPs though. These issues were never discussed by any of the numerous faculty PAs in my program either, and only a few students I spoke with seemed well-versed on the issues. 

Unfortunately, the apathy among many practicing PAs seems to mirror the apathy of students in PA school when it comes to the issues facing the profession. I think preceptors and PA faculty alike should make it a point to highlight the importance of PA advocacy to students, and I think this would be well received if just a little bit of time was taken to explain the issues and why it's important for their future.

Most of what I know about these issues has come from this forum and the Huddle, and I think that's a crying shame. 

They will find out how things are soon enough when they start eating each other fighting over jobs....

[deltawave]

My program faculty were big into OTP and ensuring we knew what was going on in the politics of the PA profession. Routine encouragement to join the AAPA and our state organization lead to about 50-60% of us joining, myself among them. We also had multiple opportunities to go to state PA conferences and were encouraged to do so. We even got to meet officers of said groups who came to speak to us occasionally.  
 

Sorry for straying off the topic. 

[deltawave]

Well... here is a screenshot of a Facebook poll by PAFT. 
 

Looks like we have our answer on how this is going to go. 252 votes with 6 days to go, that’s no small sample. PA is here to stay.

Edited December 11, 2019 by deltawave

[r.sandoval.pac]

How about we create more residency programs like the ones at Arrowhead, and they can have DMS curriculum. So that can be another way of name change and a path to become an independent provider. It will definitely be better education than a DNP program and more clinically based.


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[deltawave]

9 minutes ago, r.sandoval.pac said:

How about we create more residency programs like the ones at Arrowhead, and they can have DMS curriculum. So that can be another way of name change and a path to become an independent provider. It will definitely be better education than a DNP program and more clinically based.


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That’s great, but it will not matter so long as we are physician assistants or physician associates (or as patients like to say physician’s assistant). 
We need our own title that better promotes what we do. However it looks like we will get stuck with Physician Associate. Better than assistant I suppose. 

Edited December 11, 2019 by deltawave

[r.sandoval.pac]

How about those who want to not do a DMS with residency stay assistant or associates, and those who complete a DMS with residency can become a new provider, new name.


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[r.sandoval.pac]

They should have gave us better names to choose, it was designed to pick Physician Associate. Medical Care Practitioners. It would have been better as

MP (medical practitioner, practitioner of medicine) MD (medical doctor,doctor of medicine)

 

 

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[deltawave]

6 minutes ago, r.sandoval.pac said:

How about those who want to not do a DMS with residency stay assistant or associates, and those who complete a DMS with residency can become a new provider, new name.


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I don’t think many want to do that. Also, most residencies leading to CAQs don’t involve college credits that would lead to what you’re asking for, a doctorate. Why create a division among PAs in the clinic by creating two “tiers” of PAs? It seems counter productive and further serves to confuse everyone. 

Your proposal would require a complete overhaul of the educational components, accreditations, and oversight of the current residencies which are spread far and wide. 

I think a title change is a good place to start to achieve the desired effect versus sending everyone to get a doctorate... Your mileage may vary. 

[r.sandoval.pac]

I don’t think many want to do that. Also, most residencies leading to CAQs don’t involve college credits that would lead to what you’re asking for, a doctorate. Why create a division among PAs in the clinic by creating two “tiers” of PAs? It seems counter productive and further serves to confuse everyone. 
Your proposal would require a complete overhaul of the educational components, accreditations, and oversight of the current residencies which are spread far and wide. 
I think a title change is a good place to start to achieve the desired effect versus sending everyone to get a doctorate... Your mileage may vary. 

These are just random thoughts. I mean the name will be hard to change cause people want to be able to compete with NP and their push for independent but are also complaining that our title implies that we could never be that.


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[r.sandoval.pac]

The doctor of nurse practitioner was a way for the nurse practitioner to be at a level of an MD and I’m sure eventually with them not needing an MD and having a huge lobby will in the end get the rights to be called doctor in the workplace. We should really start thinking about advancing this DMS program. They attempted to create a new provider out of it, and were shot down by the senate in I forgot what state. That would have been great for our profession in my opinion.


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[deltawave]

You’re suggesting it would have been great to try to be called doctors by taking management and research courses for a “doctorate”, and then get shut down by legislators and physicians? 
 

I think we want the same things regarding evolutions but have entirely different perspectives. Let’s see if we can get a title change and OTP before biting off more than we can chew. Forcing a doctorate is going to just ensure everyone just goes to medical school; not the answer I’m looking for and again only adds to the confusion. 
 

To be entirely clear, I have no desire to be called “doctor.”

Edited December 11, 2019 by deltawave

[CookiePA]

I agree with ProSpectre above

We have students come through and when I bring up current politics and the landscape of medicine turf war some have no idea what I am talking about. Some do and want to be actively involved. 
Its frustrating when I want to discuss topics with co workers and I get eye rolls and “oh that’s just politics because our team is great”

well yeah its all fun and games until we are the ones out the door or have to move or want to change fields and some other great team out there will say no, sorry, we want someone with less paperwork tied to them. 

In any case I can see PAssociate being used politically to limit us

 

 

 

 

 

 

[r.sandoval.pac]

You’re suggesting it would have been great to try to be called doctors by taking management and research courses for a “doctorate”, and then get shut down by legislators and physicians? 
 
I think we want the same things regarding evolutions but have entirely different perspectives. Let’s see if we can get a title change and OTP before biting off more than we can chew. Forcing a doctorate is going to just ensure everyone just goes to medical school; not the answer I’m looking for and again only adds to the confusion. 
 
To be entirely clear, I have no desire to be called “doctor.”

It’s not about being called doctor I agree with you. It’s about advancing our profession, and not having to compete with NPs for jobs or be driven out. They have so many NP programs. There are 400 NP programs and they are so much easier to complete, there are 250 PA programs. 115,000 PA’s , 270,000 NP’s .
So many people assume that the NP education is superior to ours. The truth is that our training better prepares us to practice medicine than the NP and we should consider ways to advance our title and our profession even if it is by doing a doctorate. The NP’s have made it so easy to get a degree. Our focus should be more clinical in our doctorate.

Sorry for being all over the place in my post


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[PACali]

3 hours ago, deltawave said:

Well... here is a screenshot of a Facebook poll by PAFT. 
 

Looks like we have our answer on how this is going to go. 252 votes with 6 days to go, that’s no small sample. PA is here to stay.

Well, base on the limited comments that support Physician Associates on PAFT Facebook page, I have concluded the following reasons: 

1.   With Physician Associate, we get to keep the PA acronym. 

My counter point: I think the PA acronyms has no value, I am sorry but we are not IBM or BMW. Even with people knows what a PA is, they still think we are just assistants. 

2. Physician Associate sounds more appropriate for our job description. We're not so much assisting but associating and collaborating with the physicians. 

My counter point : We can still be associating and collaborating without the "Associate" in our name. We can be Medical Care Practitioner and still be associating and collaborating with physician just like any other healthcare professionals such as pharmacists, PT/OT, OS, or even other physicians. Why do we need to have "associate" in our name to be an Associate?

I hope WPP surveys the general public. If the general public think Physician Associate is someone they can trust with their medical care, as a principle medical care provider more than MCP. I will not complaint. 

 

The whole point of a name change is let people know we practice medicine not just an assistant. It looks like we may get an upgrade to "just an associate."   

Medical Care Practitioner fits well in many settings in my opinion... Partnership with physician, ownership, upper managements, get into the C- suites.  

With Physician "Associate", people just going to ask.. where is your physician?

Medical Care Practitioner, we practice medicine and provide medical care. 

 

 

 

  

Edited December 11, 2019 by PACali

[SedRate]

6 hours ago, CookiePA said:

In any case I can see PAssociate being used politically to limit us

This.

When asked what PA stands for by patients, a common follow-up question is, "So when do you finish your training and become a doctor?" I can see PAssociate being similar while also still limiting us politically.

We need something clear and easy to understand that will also instill confidence if we are to advance to independence.

I am on the fence about MCP since I think it is vague and puts us on par with NPs but as the medically trained equivalent. I do not want to be on par with NPs and we are not the medically trained equivalent of NPs. PAs receive unique medical training to practice as generalists and specialists. That is unique to all of the three practitioners since MDs do specific residencies and NPs choose tracks. PAs can go into virtually any field. MDs and NPs can't do that without additional training or certification. I am reaching for the stars and hoping for a name that is completely unique to us and puts us in our own category of medical provider, not just keep us in the APP/"mid-level" category next to NPs and "below" MDs. I don't think that name is Clinicist, and Praxician seems to be a hard sell to folks. I am interested to see what the public thinks and if WPP has anything else up their sleeve.

[Cideous]

People voting to go through all this work and all this trouble to go from an "Assistant" to an "Associate" makes me want to bang my head into a wall.  

What a complete waste of time.

[GetMeOuttaThisMess]

1 hour ago, Sed said:

When asked what PA stands for by patients, a common follow-up question is, "So when do you finish your training and become a doctor?"

The more things change, the more they stay the same.  This same statement was bantered about back in the 70’s/80’s.  I don’t think I ever had such a question asked of me.

Edited December 11, 2019 by GetMeOuttaThisMess

[SedRate]

2 hours ago, GetMeOuttaThisMess said:

The more things change, the more they stay the same.  This same statement was bantered about back in the 70’s/80’s.  I don’t think I ever had such a question asked of me.

Are you young-appearing? This question isn't meant to be disrespectful but I only really hear this complaint from those who are young or appear very young. When one says, "I'm Doctor AB," it's understood by the pt that one is qualified to treat, no matter the age. When NPs use Doctor, it's once again understood, despite appearance. 

But when a PA who is young/young-looking says a variation of, "I'm AB, and I'll be seeing you today / I'm a PA / I'm the provider seeing you today / I'm AB and I assisted on your surgery with Dr. AB / etc," this is a possible dialogue that may ensue between a pt:

"Hi, AB. Thanks for seeing me. What's the 'PA' stand for on your badge?"

"It stands for Physician Assistant."

"Oh, so when do you finish your training to become a doctor?"

I have to admit that the wrinkles I've earned are helping, so I haven't gotten it in years, but my young and young-looking students get it all the time.

Perhaps it has less to do with the title and more to do with appearance? 

[GetMeOuttaThisMess]

I was back then.  I was in my mid-20’s.

[PACali]

3 hours ago, Sed said:

Are you young-appearing? This question isn't meant to be disrespectful but I only really hear this complaint from those who are young or appear very young. When one says, "I'm Doctor AB," it's understood by the pt that one is qualified to treat, no matter the age. When NPs use Doctor, it's once again understood, despite appearance. 

But when a PA who is young/young-looking says a variation of, "I'm AB, and I'll be seeing you today / I'm a PA / I'm the provider seeing you today / I'm AB and I assisted on your surgery with Dr. AB / etc," this is a possible dialogue that may ensue between a pt:

"Hi, AB. Thanks for seeing me. What's the 'PA' stand for on your badge?"

"It stands for Physician Assistant."

"Oh, so when do you finish your training to become a doctor?"

I have to admit that the wrinkles I've earned are helping, so I haven't gotten it in years, but my young and young-looking students get it all the time.

Perhaps it has less to do with the title and more to do with appearance? 

You are right. I look young, so I get the question a lot. 

 

[PACali]

7 hours ago, Sed said:

I am on the fence about MCP since I think it is vague and puts us on par with NPs but as the medically trained equivalent. I do not want to be on par with NPs and we are not the medically trained equivalent of NPs. PAs receive unique medical training to practice as generalists and specialists. That is unique to all of the three practitioners since MDs do specific residencies and NPs choose tracks. PAs can go into virtually any field. MDs and NPs can't do that without additional training or certification. I am reaching for the stars and hoping for a name that is completely unique to us and puts us in our own category of medical provider, not just keep us in the APP/"mid-level" category next to NPs and "below" MDs. I don't think that name is Clinicist, and Praxician seems to be a hard sell to folks. I am interested to see what the public thinks and if WPP has anything else up their sleeve.

We are not on par with NPs at this point. In my opinion, NPs are surpassing us in many areas and the PAs are barely catching up. 

In the eyes of legislators, NPs have more autonomy than PAs in most areas in the country under the current law. Here in California ,the newly passed SB675 just barely put PAs on par with the NPs in 2020. 

In the eye of administrators, there are jobs for both PA and NP and there are jobs for NP only. This is just my personal observations here in California. Many reports have been promoting increase NP scope of practice and utilization without mentioning anything about PA. Like this one just came out this month:    Long Overdue: Full Practice Authority for Nurse Practitioners

In the eye of Public perception, many patients know what a NP is but PA is assistant. I would like to know how many NPs out there got asked the question "when are you going to finish medical school." 

My point is,  you don't have to worry being on par with the NPs because we are not even close. The NP profession is surpassing the PAs in many areas and we are just playing catch-up.  

 

[ProSpectre]

For those interested in the title change, the AAPA just sent out some information about the most recent survey (no results yet of course). They answered some of the common questions & concerns people raised and provided a little more information on the process and why some popular titles weren't included (i.e. they were previously considered and eliminated, as many here have suggested). The survey had over 27,000 responses though, so it should provide some pretty robust data for them to work with. 

As much flak as the survey got, I think WPP is really doing their due diligence and it will be interesting to see the final results in May.